Filtering water
Designing and building a water filtration system
This activity asks students to investigate different possible ways of filtering dirty water to improve its cleanliness by designing and building their own water filtration systems. The lesson can be extended with a practical session in which students work in small teams to investigate the salinity of different water samples. We also have related extension activities Water pollution, and Killer water.
This is one of a set of resources developed to aid the teaching of the secondary national curriculum, particularly KS3, supporting the teaching in science.
Activity: Designing and building a water filtration system
Students will work in small teams to design and build water filters. Each team will receive a cut-off 2-liter bottle to form the filter body and can choose a maximum of four materials to use. Before building, students should consider their filter's design and sketch a plan. Once filters are built, each team will receive a beaker of dirty water to test them. After filtration, they’ll collect a sample of the filtered water in a glass container and place it on a white tile. They’ll then observe the clarity of the water compared to other teams' samples.
Download our activity overview for a detailed lesson plan on how to build a water filtration system.
The engineering context
Drinking or cooking water contaminated with micro-organisms or chemicals is a leading cause of disease and death across the world. Poor facilities for the disposal of sewage and other waste water can quickly lead to the spread of dangerous diseases.
Engineers and scientists work to provide us with safe, clean drinking water, with efficient and clean methods for disposing of our waste water and practical drainage solutions.
Suggested learning outcomes
Students will be able to recall the different types of impurities that can contaminate water. As well as this, they’ll know how to describe how water filtration equipment acts in several different ways to produce potable (drinkable) water.
Download our activity sheet and other teaching resources
The activity sheet includes teachers’ notes, useful web links, and links (where appropriate) to the national curriculum in each of the four devolved nations; England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
All activity sheets and supporting resources are free to download, and all the documents are fully editable, so you can tailor them to your students’ and your schools’ needs.
Download our classroom lesson plan and presentation below.
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